Romania (ROU)

Romania’s first Olympic participant was future International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Gheorghe Plagino, who competed in the clay trap shooting event in 1900. The nation next competed at the 1924 Olympic Games and has since missed only the 1932 and 1948 Olympics. Romania defied pressure from its neighbors and valiantly was the only Warsaw Pact country to compete at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Romania has competed at the Olympic Winter Games since their inception in 1924, missing only 1960. Romania has won 309 Olympic medals, with 90 gold medals.

Romania is best known for its outstanding women gymnasts, and has also produced several excellent rowers, canoeists, track and field athletes and wrestlers. The most famous Romanian Olympian is certainly gymnast Nadia Comăneci, who in 1976 became the first person to earn a perfect 10 in Olympic competition, and won a total of five golds and nine medals in all. Rowers Elisabeta Oleniuc-Lipă and Georgeta Damian-Andrunache have also won five gold medals. Ivan Patzaichin is the best Romanian Olympic canoeist, with seven medals and four gold. Also with a total with seven medals stands gymnast Simona Amânar, with three golds.

Romania has competed at the Olympic Winter Games since their inception in 1924, missing only 1960 at Palisades Tahoe/Olympic Valley (formerly Squaw Valley). Only a single medal, a bronze, has been earned in the Winter Olympics, by Ion Panţuru and Nicolae Neagoe in the 1968 two man bobsleigh. Romania has come close to other medals, with an additional 25 top-10 finishes (six by women), placing fourth in 1932 two-man bobsleigh, 1968 four-man bobsleigh, and luge doubles in 1992.

Through 2022, Romania has Winter Olympians competing in 13 of the 15 disciplines on the current Winter Olympic Programme, missing only curling and snowboarding to date. Eva Tofalvi has competed at six Olympic Winter Games in women’s biathlon, appearing in 1998-2018 consecutively. She also carried the Romanian flag three times at the Opening Ceremonies, in 2002, 2010, and 2014. Willi Zacharias competed for Romania in Alpine and cross-country skiing at the 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Olympic Winter Games, and also played handball that year at the Berlin Summer Olympic Games.